A Health and Fitness Blog

The other day I was advising a new client on adopting a low carbohydrate diet when she became extremely resistant to the idea because, as she said, “Eating low carbohydrate causes your body to create ketones and go into ketosis which is very dangerous”.

Unfortunately, my client is being led astray by misinformation.

Yes, when you eat less than roughly 60 grams of carbohydrates per day your body goes into ketosis, which is the process by which the body shifts from using glucose (carbohydrates) as it’s main energy source to using ketones (fat) as it’s main energy source . By the way, fat is the body’s preferred energy source, and as Dr. Jeff Volek, PhD, RD, and Adam Campbell mention in their book, Men’s Health TNT Diet: The Explosive New Plan to Blast Fat, Build Muscle, and Get Healthy in 12 Weeks, “National Institute of Health scientist Richard Veech, MD, PhD, has found that ketones may help both your brain and heart run 25 percent more efficiently.”

Ketosis is a perfectly normal and healthy process, and ketones are not bad and are simply a by-product of fat being broken down for energy. In many instances people, and yes, even doctors (as I have seen firsthand), are scared off by low carbohydrate diets because they confuse ketosis with ketoacidosis, which is an abnormal condition seen in uncontrolled diabetes. Ketoacidosis is a serious condition. Ketosis is, as I already said, a perfectly normal and healthy process.

There are many benefits to being in ketosis including the fact that they prevent protein in your muscles from being broken down so that you are more likely to be burning fat rather than muscle, and they suppress your appetite.

So please, don’t be scared away from low carbohydrate dieting due to misinformation. You’ll be missing out on being a lean, mean and efficient fat burning machine.

I just finished watching a fantastic lecture byFat Headproducer Tom Naughton, on how and why we get fat and diabetic. I HIGHLY recommend you take the time (about 1 hour) to watch this. I have posted all 5 parts of this lecture right here for you to view.

Over the past 30 years, the general population has come to believe that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us. However, as I tell my clients, friends, family members, and acquaintances on a pretty regular basis, this is nothing more than a myth; a well told lie. The truth is that grains, starches, and sugar are responsible for obesity and the diseases of civilization.

So where did this lie about saturated fat and cholesterol come from? This video from Tom Naughton’s fantastic movie Fat Head, explains it perfectly. Enjoy! And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I highly recommend you add it to your Net Flix queue right now!

“The bottom line is that these (soy foods) are not nutrients. They are drugs.” — Dr. Lon R. White

Despite this scary truth, many people have come to believe that soy is healthy; even a miracle food. We can thank a massive marketing campaign by the soy industry for this false belief.

As Lierre Keith points out in The Vegetarian Myth, “This is what you are eating when you eat soy: an industrial waste product. Soy as it grows in the field is not actually a low-fat paragon. It’s about 30 percent fat. Once upon a time it was grown for its oil–not because people ate it, but because it was used for paint and glue. In 1913, the USDA listed soy as an industrial material, not as a food.”

Call me crazy, but I have no desire to consume anything that was once listed as an industrial material and was used for paint and glue.

Here is a list of the dangers of soy, as summarized by the Weston A. Price Foundation (I have inserted my own comments in parentheses):

High levels of phytic acid (phytates are antinutrients that bind with minerals in your digestive track) in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

Trypsin inhibitors (Trypsin is an important digestive enzyme produced by the pancreas) in soy interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. In test animals soy containing trypsin inhibitors caused stunted growth.

Soy phytoestrogens (phytoestrogens are an estrogen-like compound produced by over 300 plants, with soy being the only one that humans eat) disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women.

Soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.

Vitamin B12 analogs in soy are not absorbed and actually increase the body’s requirement for B12.

Soy foods increase the body’s requirement for vitamin D.

Fragile proteins are denatured (Denature: To cause the tertiary structure of a protein to unfold, as with heat, alkali, or acid, so that some of its original properties, especially its biological activity, are diminished or eliminated) during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein.

Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine (lysinoalanine is an unusual amino acid) and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines (nitrosamines are a chemical compound).

Free glutamic acid or MSG, a potent neurotoxin, is formed during soy food processing and additional amounts are added to many soy foods.

Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum which is toxic to the nervous system and the kidneys.

If after reading all the above dangers of soy, you still think it’s OK to feed your infant soy formula, please keep reading.

Lierre Keith states, “What happens to babies fed soy formula? First, soy formula provides 38 mg of isoflavones a day. That’s a hormone load equivalent to that of three to five birth control pills each and every day. That number was derived from Swiss Federal Health Service data, data they published with warnings. Are you warned yet? Daniel Sheehan, who was a Senior Toxicologist at the FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research, thinks you should be. He says that infant soy formula is a ‘large, uncontrolled and basically unmonitored human infant experiment.'”

Soy infant formula is birth control for babies. Below is a list of the dangers of soy infant formula as summarized by Soy Online Service:

Babies fed soy-based formula have 13,000 to 22,000 times more estrogen compounds in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula.

Infants exclusively fed soy formula receive the estrogenic equivalent of at least five birth control pills per day.

Male infants undergo a “testosterone surge” during the first few months of life, when testosterone levels may be as high as those of an adult male. During this period, baby boys are programmed to express male characteristics after puberty, not only in the development of their sexual organs and other masculine physical traits, but also in setting patterns in the brain characteristic of male behavior.

Pediatricians are noticing greater numbers of boys whose physical maturation is delayed, or does not occur at all, including lack of development of the sexual organs. Learning disabilities, especially in male children, have reached epidemic proportions.

Soy infant feeding—which floods the bloodstream with female hormones that inhibit testosterone—cannot be ignored as a possible cause for these tragic developments. In animals, soy feeding indicates that phytoestrogens in soy are powerful endocrine disrupters.

Almost 15 percent of white girls and 50 percent of African-American girls show signs of puberty such as breast development and pubic hair, before the age of eight. Some girls are showing sexual development before the age of three. Premature development of girls has been linked to the use of soy formula and exposure to environmental estrogens such as PCBs and DDE.

Despite what the soy industry would love to have you believe, soy is no health food, and it is certainly no miracle food. It is a drug and I would stay far away from it.

When advising clients and friends on proper eating and following a low carbohydrate diet, I am often asked what I eat on a day to day basis. With that in mind, I thought I would share with you what I eat on a typical day.

“Pre”- Breakfast

When I first get out of bed in the morning, I don’t like to eat a “real” breakfast. My stomach isn’t quite ready for it and since I have been sleeping (and consequently not eating for many hours) I like to get something easily digestible right into my body. So, I start off with a whey protein shake (I use Vital Whey) and I throw in either a raw egg or a tablespoon of coconut butter to add some essential fats.

Breakfast

Eggs. Due to the nature of my schedule those eggs are typically hard boiled. It normally takes 5 eggs to satisfy me.

Lunch

Two cans of boneless and skinless sardines in olive oil, along with a salad of various greens and avocado.

Dinner

Roughly 10 ounces of grass fed red meat (in the form of hamburgers) with a side of green veggies in butter (such as broccoli or string beans), or avocado, or spinach sautéed with garlic and olive oil.

Snack

I usually do not have snack between breakfast and lunch. Between having a protein shake when I wake up and then having breakfast, I find myself pretty satisfied. I usually have a snack between lunch and dinner. I may have a snack after dinner depending on whether or not I have dinner at a reasonable time.

Snacks may include real food such as: sardines, eggs, almond butter or almonds, coconut butter, etc. If I have a dairy craving I may eat whole fat Greek yogurt or whole fat cottage cheese. On the occasions where I desire fruit as a snack, it will generally be dark berries such as blueberries or strawberries.

Again, this is what I eat on typical day. Many of these items are interchangeable. I may have eggs for dinner or lunch. I may have red meat, poultry, or fish for breakfast. However, the dietary guidelines never change.

Some key factors you may have noticed:

I consume a very low carbohydrate diet (a typical day for me would be between 10-20 grams of carbohydrate).

I avoid all grains and starches.

I consume a diet high in fat and adequate in protein. On average, this constitutes a 60/40 or 70/30 split.

I eat a minimal amount of fruit (generally only when I have a “craving”).

I eat a minimal amount of dairy (again, generally only when I have a “craving”. Although I am a sucker for cheese!).

I recently finished reading The Vegetarian Mythby Lierre Keith. I was absolutely blown away by this book. There were literally moments where what I was reading sent shivers down my spine. Ms. Keith has quite a way with words. Her writing is gripping, to say the least.

Dr. Mike Eades said it best: “Everyone should read this book, vegetarian and non-vegetarian alike. If you’re a radical feminist, you should read this book; if you’re a male chauvinist, you should read this book; if you have children, especially female children, you should read this book; if you are a young woman (or man) you should read this book; if you love animals, you should read this book; if you hate vegetarians, you should read this book; if you are contemplating the vegetarian way of life, you should definitely read this book; if you have a vegetarian friend or family member, you should this book and so should your friend. As MD (Dr. Mary Dan Eades) said after she read it, ‘everyone who eats should read this book.'”

In my humble opinion you should go buy this book right now. It’s one of the most important books you will ever read.

And how did he lose all this weight? “No carbs. I have cheated a couple times, but basically no carbs, not even a cracker. No bread at all. No pizza, nothing. No corn, no beans, no starches of any kind. Egg whites in the morning or like, Greek yogurt, cut some fruit.”

My one complaint here would be that he is only eating egg whites. Eat the whole egg. Fat is good for you and only exerts a negative health effect in the presence carbohydrates: “The deleterious effects of fat have been measured in the presence of high carbohydrate. A high fat diet in the presence of high carbohydrate is different than a high fat diet in the presence of low carbohydrate.” – Richard Feinman, PhD

While a low carbohydrate diet certainly does not have to be “no carb” (technically a low carbohydrate diet would be under 60 grams of carbohydrates per day) Drew cut out the main culprits: grains and starches. He even recognized that he needed to minimize his intake of fruit. In addition, he stopped drinking soda and now only drinks water.

Drew also credits the enormous amount of cardio he is doing as key to his weight loss: “Lots of cardio. About 45 minutes of cardio, at least 45 minutes of cardio. I’ve been kind of lazy like lately, so I’m not doing it 6 days a week, but I will be for this next month.” This is where he is veering off course. As I have stated in a previous post, exercise will not make you thin. The loss/retention of body fat is hormonal, which is exactly why carbohydrate restriction works so well. Cardio does not help you lose weight. In fact, doing too much cardio (such as 6 days a week) can often hinder the loss of body fat through harmful hormonal changes and muscle wasting.

My advice to Drew? Stop doing the cardio and make sure you are doing your strength training. You need this to build muscle and it will increase your insulin sensitivity. Not to mention a myriad of other health benefits, such as: an increased metabolic rate, enhanced flexibility, improved blood pressure, increased bone density, and more!

When I tell people I exercise about 20 minutes a week, I am often met with looks of skepticism. As I have said time and time again, less is more. It’s all about quality NOT quantity.

Here is my workout from last week. I have been working out 3 times a week and have split up my workouts as follows:

DAY ONE: Multi-Joint Exercises

DAY TWO: Spinal Exercises

DAY THREE: Single- Joint Exercises

I love doing Spinal Exercises on DAY TWO because in addition to strengthening and creating traction for my spine, it gives me some much needed extra rest between my Multi-Joint and Single-Joint workouts.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported on a study done by Australian researchers in which they allege that “high fat foods may trigger airway inflammation”. You can read the article by clicking HERE.

This study is another example of time and money being wasted on junk science. Once again, dietary fat has been vilified because it is the politically correct thing to do and NOT because science has legitimately implicated it in anyway.

In this study, “Australian researchers did tests on 40 people with asthma who were randomly assigned to eat different meals. One was a high-fat meal of fast food hamburgers and hash browns that came in at 1,000 calories, with 52% of calories from fat. The other was a 200-calories low-fat meal of reduced fat yogurt with 13% of calories from fat. Included in the high-fat test group were 16 obese people; the rest of the study participants were not obese.”

Let’s breakdown the study and see why it wouldn’t hold water in an elementary school science class:

The meals were not iso-caloric. In other words, they did not contain the same number of calories. One contained 1,000 calories and the other, 200 calories. This alone invalidates the study.

The high-fat meal contained a large amount of carbohydrates in the form of wheat and starches. The low-fat meal did not. Sugar (carbohydrates) and especially wheat, are known to be highly inflammatory.

Out of the 20 people in the high-fat group, 16 were obese. Out of the 20 people in the low-fat group, none were obese. How do we know that obesity was not the underlying factor?

Simply put, there are too many variables in this study to able to say what the underlying cause of the inflammation was. This study does not tell us a single thing, except that these researchers had no idea what they were doing.

Now that Spring is here (actually it has felt more like summer lately!) I have been reflecting on how I held up over the Fall/Winter of 2009/2010. Being that I am always on the go and average only 5-6 hours of sleep a night, my Fall and Winter usually consists of several colds and at least one that lingers for a couple of weeks. Outside of the fact that I run around like crazy and do not get much sleep, I take exceptional care of myself. I strength train 2-3 times a week, I eat a low carbohydrate/high protein & fat diet, and I supplement myself with whole food vitamins.

As I just mentioned, I eat a low carbohydrate diet. (less than 60 grams of carbohydrates per day). Up until the Fall of 2009 I was still eating some grains, albeit not a great deal of them. As I have mentioned in previous posts, grains contain antinutrients. Simply put, they interfere with our body’s ability to absorb nutrients and they are linked to a myriad of other health problems (this is a must read: Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword, by Loren Cordain). However, I still ate them because 1) I ate a minimal amount and 2) I liked eating them.

However, with how consistently I had been getting sick every Fall and Winter year in and year out, I started thinking about this more. What if even the small amount of grains I had been eating was enough to interfere with my body’s ability to absorb nutrients and was therefore the main culprit in my getting so sick? What if this was what was truly compromising my immune system, much more than my lack of sleep (I am NOT disregarding the importance of sleep)?

With all this in mind I made a change in the Fall of 2009. I removed ALL grains from my diet.

As I sit here reflecting on this past Fall and Winter, this is what stands out: I did not get sick even one time. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Not even a sniffle. OK, you get my point.

Some people might say this is nothing more than a coincidence, and I suppose that could be true. But knowing that grains do in fact interfere with our body’s ability to absorb nutrients, and that since I have cut them completely out of my diet I have not gotten sick AND I feel great, it’s hard for me to say that there is not a relationship.

About

Neil Holland is certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine as a Personal Trainer. Since 2003, he has been helping people realize their physical fitness potential, so they can enjoy a healthier lifestyle and a higher quality of life.